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In Denmark, Pedaling to Work on a Superhighway
- jbarham 14y agoFunny how stories about bicycle commuting seem to peak in summer...
- recursive 14y agoIgnoring the fact that it's winter in some parts of the world, I think there's a simple explanation. Summer is probably when people are doing the most bicycling, and people have a tendency to write about what's on their mind.
- mseebach 14y agoI think the OP meant to make a quip about the relative unpleasantness of a bicycle commute in the winter. In Denmark, it's not so bad actually. While winters tend to be miserable in their dark grayness, they're rarely very cold. The risk of rain is higher, but any day throughout the year could be wet. In other words, with a bit of gearing up, especially with a shower at your destination, year-round bike commuting in Denmark is completely feasible. Not that cycling in freezing rain doesn't objectively suck.
- excuse-me 14y agoCome to Vancouver - we have the same rain but with hills and N American drivers.
- bryanlarsen 14y agoI'd rather have "very cold" than "above freezing, but wet". If it's well below freezing it's easy to stay dry due to water's tendency to stay solid. And if you're dry, it's much easier to regulate your internal temperature. Of course, salted roads can give you the worst of both worlds: wet & very cold.
- recursive 14y agoIf one finds it pleasant to ride in the summer, but not in the winter, they can always just ride in the summer.
- dpetters 14y agoI'm an intern in the Seattle area for the summer and was faced with a choice upon arriving - buy a bike and get $350 of it covered or pay ~$1000 to get a rental car for all three months. Due to the obvious financial benefit of the former I wanted a bike, but after it raining for a week straight upon my arrival I chose to get a car. This, along with the tremendous social benefits of being able to come and go as you please, convinced me that owning and riding a bike is a healthy alternate transportation method for the nice days, but not really a feasible replacement.
- soperj 14y agoI'm from Vancouver Island(right near seattle) and bike through the winter. It really isn't that bad when it's raining, wear a jacket. The only days I don't bike are snow days(because they don't do snow removal very well here) and then I take the bus.
- quantumstate 14y agoI have spent the last two years at university cycling to lecture and am now cycling to work. It saves a large amount of money (~£1800 insurance+£1500 running costs). If it rains you just wear waterproof clothing. You can easily get good quality waterproofs (e.g. Gore-Tex) for £200 which will last for years. You have to be willing to live fairly near to work of course. For me it would probably take about the same amount of time to drive to work. It takes me about 13 minutes to cycle and rush hour traffic will slow a car down. If I want to go longer distances I can catch a train (and take the bike for the other end) or take a bus. Occasionally hiring a car is also possible for rare occasions. So for me using a bike is completely feasible for living in a city.
- pdelgallego 14y agoWell, the OP is about Copenhagen, Denmark. It is not exactly warn and sunny here.
- NathanKP 14y agoI used to bike about 20 miles a week, and I really miss it, since I moved to a more suburb area where it is no longer practical. Projects like these sound awesome, and make me wonder what it would take to get something like it started here in the US.
- excuse-me 14y agoAn invasion of Danish vikings?
- tomjen3 14y agoTry doubling the price of gas and slap a 180% tax on all new nonelectric cars. Danes are not that much more interested in protecting the environment than the rest of the world -- we just can't afford cars.
- ahelwer 14y agoSome cities have "park & ride" lots 5-10 km from the core, so people living in the suburbs can drive in, park (usually for free), and bike the rest of the way. Calgary has these.
- jarek 14y ago> wonder what it would take to get something like it started here in the US. I've been reading these discussions on the internet for a while and I've been seeing a willingness and perhaps even a desire to excuse the status quo as a large factor. Bring up the stereotypical Copenhagen and Amsterdam and immediately people post reasons why North America can't be like that: the hills and the climate and the distances and so on. It strikes me as very un-American in a way - challenging land and climate and large distances haven't stopped Americans from expanding into the desert southwest or paving interstate freeways through the Rockies or building air force bases in Alaska tundra but they do apparently stop people from getting around on a bicycle. For every hilly Seattle and San Francisco there's a flat Midwest town (or a flatter route through a hilly city that could benefit from infrastructure even if other routes are not feasible) and for every location with a hot summer and cold winter there's mild northeast and northwest. By some of the criteria advanced, small towns in New England should be bike infrastructure havens, which they are decidedly not. It's one thing if you consciously don't want bike infrastructure, it's another to throw up your arms and declare it'll never work there without trying.
- excuse-me 14y ago$1.6M of taxpayers money for a 40km bike route? You could build almost 35metres of freeway for that!
- bunderbunder 14y agoSad how close to true this is. I used to work in transportation, and at least the USA* the figure is about $10-40M per mile, with rural highway being cheaper and urban highway being more expensive. So $1.6M really could buy you as little as 64 meters of freeway. (Or as much as 1/4 km!) * Which, I should mention, has a bit of a tradition of cheaping out on the construction. Why worry about the higher maintenance costs when that's going to be your successor's problem? Better to kick that can down the road and brag about how much taxpayer money you're "saving". Ahh, the beauty of the spoils system.
- excuse-me 14y agoHave you considered adopting the British system? You bid out the construction to the cheapest contractor with strict penalties for late completion. But the same company then gets the contract for repair and maintenance for the next 20years! Politicians were shocked when their brand new freeway closed for resurfacing within a month of opening.
- bunderbunder 14y agoCue obligatory quote: "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!"
- jessepollak 14y agoWow, that's super interesting. Do you know of any data on whether this has been an effective strategy for keeping costs down?
- Shoomz 14y agoJesse, I think you missed the point. It's like the old Consulting axiom: If you can't be part of the solution, there's good money to be made prolonging the problem.
- tokenadult 14y agoMinneapolis, Minnesota, a city of cold, icy winters, is arguably the number-one bicycle city in the United States, http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-minneapolis http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-m... and one feature of bicycling in Minneapolis and its suburbs is an ongoing effort to make regional bicycle trails, some by converting old railroad railbeds into bicycle trails, including bicycle superhighways. http://blogs.citypages.com/dressingroom/2012/07/midtown_greenway_community_bike_festival_celebrates_cycling.php http://blogs.citypages.com/dressingroom/2012/07/midtown_gree... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Lake_Trail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Lake_Trail My wife regularly bicycle commutes (she is doing so as I type this) and our whole family takes recreational trips into neighboring towns along dedicated bicycle trails. We reduce our car driving by hundreds of miles per year by using the city trail system (combining mostly walkers, and in winter skiers, with quite a few year-round bicyclists) and the regional trail system (combining mostly recreational bicyclists with some year-round bicycle commuters and some walkers). The regional trail system is becoming more and more extensive http://www.minnehahamedia.com/gw/twin_cities_reg_trails/index.html http://www.minnehahamedia.com/gw/twin_cities_reg_trails/inde... and is projected to ring the entire metropolitan area with dedicated bicycle trails in the next decade.
- peterwwillis 14y agoDC/MD/VA have a lot of verrry long bike trails, and it makes a good deal of sense to use them instead of fighting the beltway traffic, if you live a certain distance away and have showers at work. But if you don't have showers at work, what do you do once you get there? Spray on deodorant and feel gross for the rest of the day?
- JaggedJax 14y agoI don't have an overly long commute, but enough to make me fairly sweaty. There is no shower at my work, but one of the restrooms is a single with a lockable door. I always bring a towel and a change of clothes and give myself a light spit bath in key areas with wet paper towels and towel dry everywhere before putting on deodorant. It's not as good as a shower, but I don't smell and I don't feel sticky after. I also feel great and refreshed and not in need of a cup of coffee to wake me up.
- trout 14y agoI've thought about how many more places I would be willing to bike to if I could just hop on the freeway with my bike. We have an event every year where they allow you to, and it's a tease.
- ajays 14y agoI don't understand this part: "(the region) has provided $1.6 million for the superhighway project. " How is it possible to build 14 miles of this bike highway for this little money? (I'm an American). Here, you'd spend this amount just on "feasibility study" and buying off the inevitable opposition.
- maxerickson 14y agoMy understanding was that much of the money was spent improving already existing trails (and perhaps funding winter maintenance). Edit: Also, I think that was one source of funds, not the total cost of the project.
- morsch 14y agoMaybe the region only provided part of the total project budget? As another data point, a somewhat similar but larger project -- about 100km bike highway in an urbanised region -- in Germany is probably not going to happen due to costs of >110 million EUR. That's approximately 10x as expensive per km as the project in Copenhagen, if the $1.4 million is the total project budget after all.
- dojomouse 14y ago$100k/mile seems more reasonable given typical suburban rd pricing (~$200k/mile). Hugely dependent on how much the right of way has to be refrigged first I guess.
- mseebach 14y agoIt wasn't "built". Almost all of it was already there. If was made into a route, had an orange line painted on it and (sometimes this seems like the most important part when dealing with bicycle projects in Denmark) marketed heavily. One of the comments on the linked danish article is a woman who says she's been doing that commute for years - a long a different route that is shorter and worked very well for her, so she doesn't really see the point.
- hristov 14y agoI am not sure what the funding is, but Bike roads are much much cheaper than car roads. What makes a road expensive is how much weight it can handle, and when you move from a car to a bike you remove at least 95% of the weight the road has to handle. You also save a lot of money because the road does not have to handle 80 mph speeds. Car roads get destroyed when wheels slam into small bumps or holes in the asphalt at very high speeds. So while it may all look like the same asphalt bike roads are much much cheaper to both build and maintain. Therefore, even if you never get on a bike you should be making your city build bike roads because, if other people chose to bike instead of driving, this will mean lower costs to the city and less taxes for you.
- tscrib 14y agoI'm a regular commuter cyclist (Halifax, NS; now Ottawa, ON) and how I wish I could ride on such a highway! Even the best cycling lanes I have experienced are punctuated by stops, intersections and red lights. When you're cruising at 35km/h, there is nothing worse than having to come to a complete stop. More of this please.
- excuse-me 14y agoSee the famous http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the-month/book.htm http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the-mo... for the UK's worst cycle paths
- tscrib 14y agoI'm a regular commuter cyclist (Halifax, NS; now Ottawa, ON) and how I wish I could ride on such a highway! Even the best cycling lanes I have experienced are punctuated by stops, intersections and red lights. When you're cruising at 35km/h, there is nothing worse than having to come to a complete stop. More of this please.
- darklajid 14y agoAfter one year of living abroad in Tel Aviv people here in Germany constantly ask me what I miss the most. They never expect 'riding the bike to work' as answer. I had the privilege of being able to reach work by a very, very nice ride through a park, along a river. No cars. Showers provided in the office. In Germany I used to drive 1.6km to work with a car and I usually got up around 10. In Israel I drove 6.5-7km on a bike and usually just fell out of bed around 7:30-8:00. The quality of life that this tiny change added is mind blowing.
- muellerwolfram 14y agobut to be fair, it was probably more of a the-scenery-was-nice-kind-of-thing, right? because at least in the cities that i lived in in germany (freiburg, stuttgart, berlin), going around by bike was also way quicker and more convenient then public transportation or cars.
- darklajid 14y agoNo, the factors that lead to my decision (and ultimately: a better daily life) - I hate the traffic in Tel Aviv. It works, it's bearable, but coming from a German Autobahn it's just messy, slow, loud and unpredictable - I had the fortune of choosing an apartment with an excellent connection to work (and < 100m away from the beach), by accident (I didn't explore the way to work before signing the apartment contract) - Lots of light, warm weather 11 month of the year (locals would disagree, I've seen gas powered heaters outside of restaurants when it was 18-20 degrees aka "t-shirt and shorts" weather), rain only in 1-2 month of the year: Perfect for bikes - There _is_ no usable public transportation, so bikes are actually quite important and well-used (taxis are ~cheap~ and there are bus lines, but those won't run on shabbat and are .. special)
- ido 14y agoInteresting, up to the end of your comment I was sure you were saying how you were driving a car in Israel and biking in Germany :) I'm an Israeli currently living in Vienna, I don't bike myself but it's very common here & there are many bike paths. Also - everybody I know in Israel owns a car, and almost nobody I know in Vienna does.
- johnchristopher 14y agoI am always annoyed with articles promoting safe cycling when illustrating pictures show cyclists without helmets or any other form of protective gears. In Belgium there is a small movement promoting bikes and there are all kind of hipsters, bobo and 50 years old grey hair vegan on fake vintage bikes riding without helmets and without any sense of road conduct. Good bikers wearing yellow jackets and helmets are really rare ; I am beginning to think the formers are ruining the latters's image.
- biehl 14y agoSorry, in Denmark there are plenty of good bikers that are not wearing yellow jackets and helmets. Why should they? The cycle superhighways are about safe-for-biking infrastructure, so you can dress as you like when biking. In central Copenhagen quite a lot of people bike in suits which is awesome.
- dredmorbius 14y agoIf I walk in suit, or rather, in business-casual clothing, I get sweaty in much of the US. When cycling I'm aiming for minimally-covering clothing, and a shower is still helpful. Much of continental Europe is cooler than the US, northern Europe even more so.
- arethuza 14y agoHaving survived a cycling accident that probably would have killed me if I hadn't been wearing a helmet that occurred on a perfectly "safe" traffic free track I would urge everyone to always wear a cycling helmet.
- bryanlarsen 14y agoYou use the word "track" which implies you were cycling at a high speed, so you are quite likely correct. Studies show quite a clear benefit for wearing helmets if you are travelling above 20km/hr. The benefits of a helmet are much less significant if you are biking less than 20km/hr.
- simonz05 14y agoJust came home from work on my bicycle in Copenhagen. Didn't know we had superhighway's. I understand the effort of trying to make the long distance routes more pleasant, though. We have another problem however, which is that the inner city is very crowded in rush hour. I hope the expand the high traffic lanes to become even wider at some point. Currently all lanes are double-lanes, but triple lanes would be really nice in choke-points. This might sound stupid to someone which doesn't even have bike lanes in their city, but this is an actual problem in Copenhagen. It's not so much about being able to go fast, but also about safety.
- wallflower 14y agoThe former Mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, has done remarkable things for that city. Among them, a dedicated bike lane/walking system that loops around most of the city. http://www.streetfilms.org/lessons-from-bogota/ http://www.streetfilms.org/lessons-from-bogota/ http://thisbigcity.net/photo-essay-bogota-and-the-bicycle-a-city-that-prioritises-cyclists/ http://thisbigcity.net/photo-essay-bogota-and-the-bicycle-a-... “Do we dare create a transport system giving priority to the needs of the poor? Or are we really trying to solve the traffic jams of the upper income people? That is really the true issue that exist?” “God made us walking animals – pedestrians. As a fish needs to swim, a bird to fly, a deer to run, we need to walk, not in order to survive, but to be happy.” He is quite a character, featured in the maker of Helvetica's "Urbanized" http://www.pps.org/reference/epenalosa-2/ http://www.pps.org/reference/epenalosa-2/
- johnohara 14y agoGood job Denmark. No negatives that I can see. OT: The Des Moines Register's Annual Great Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) starts this Saturday. Anyone who's ever participated in this event can appreciate the morning commute with 10,000+ of your closest friends to get pancakes and breakfast burritos in the first town. http://www.ragbrai.com http://www.ragbrai.com
- wiredfool 14y agoI did a couple (12 and 16, I think). What a blast. I just love riding early in the morning, when it's cool and misty when you just knew that the heat would hit in full force in the afternoon.
- vosper 14y agoOne of the women in that photo is using her mobile phone while she cycles along right next to a bunch of other people. That is so dangerous. It's behaviour like this (and the inability to cycle in a straight-ish line) that makes me hate biking in groups of commuters, like those riding down Market St in SF.
- Someone 14y agoHow dangerous? I think it all depends on how well the average drive can ride in a straight line. Having a bike with a larger slant in the front fork (Wikipedia calls them roadster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadster_(bicycle) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadster_(bicycle), but does not realize that 'keeps a straight line easier' is one of its most important assets) helps tremendously there. For examples of 'safe' use of a mobile phone while cycling, see http://www.ski-epic.com/amsterdam_bicycles/ http://www.ski-epic.com/amsterdam_bicycles/
- aidenn0 14y agoWow, first thing that jumped out at me from those pictures was that all the bicycles had at least a top chain cover, and most had no exposed chain around the crank at all. That has to account for a lot of the "riding in formalwear" since pants and dresses can get caught in the chain really easily otherwise.
- vosper 14y agoIt does relate to your ability to bike in a straight line, but the other danger is that you're not looking at what other people are doing. Relative to their width people on bikes move a lot more side-to-side than a car does - it's not uncommon to see a person on a bike weaving a couple of feet in either direction as they pedal. If cars did this the lanes would have to be 2-3 times the width of the car on either side to accomodate the movement. Further, having one hand off the handlebars massively diminishes your ability to react safely and accurately. Granted, the worst that might happen in a bike-on-bike crash is a broken bone or concussion, but for people who aren't at peak health (or who just get really unlucky) this could be a significant, even life-changing event.
- flexie 14y agoI used to bike to work in my suit in Copenhagen. Kids are driven to nursery and kindergarten on bikes like this: http://www.christianiabikes.com/ http://www.christianiabikes.com/ In NYC I always thought they could benefit from real, separate bike paths and not just the bike lanes created by stripes painted on the avenues. But honestly, I am not sure the idea of biking is going to pick up in America. Biking is popular in Denmark and the Netherlands where temperatures rarely fall below 20-25 degrees in the winter and where summer temperatures above 77 degrees is something experienced 5-10 days a year. Most American cities have much warmer summers and much harder winters - even if they had bike lanes it wouldn't be comfortable to use a bike as means of transportation.
- MattSayar 14y agoNot to mention these cities and neighborhoods are very pedestrian-friendly as it is, since they were around long, long before cars were invented.
- hristov 14y agoIn LA temperatures rarely fall below 50 degrees in the winter and are rarely above 85 in the summer. Yet LA is jam packed with cars and features traffic jams at any time of day. I think LA is a perfect city for bike streets. There are underground gangs of byciclist in LA that periodically take over large streets by swarming them with thousands of bikes and completely shutting down car traffic. I am sure they do this to give city planners a clue, but the clues are slow to come.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoAs much as I love to support biking it's important to keep in mind how geography dependent it can be. Denmark and The Netherlands are extremely flat, which makes them unusually suitable locations for biking. If you add in any significant amount of elevation change then you immediately raise the bar in terms of the fitness requirements necessary to get to typical destinations.
- dojomouse 14y agoElectric assist bikes are making this far less of an issue. My relatively aged parents had no trouble riding 70km with 1800m of climbing. The happiness, health, and environmental benefits remain.
- jlarocco 14y agoThat's a pretty lame excuse, IMO. I don't think most cities have so much elevation gain that biking to work isn't practical for most people. There are definitely exceptions, but I'm pretty sure a person of average fitness could bike to work without too much trouble in the vast majority of cases. The majority of bikes sold have multiple gears, so hills should be even less of an issue.
- sorenbs 14y agoAs a dane who has traveled a lot in the us i must say that i wouldn't dare to bike in most american cities.
- cygwin98 14y agoJust curious, can you ride e-bikes on the bike highways in Denmark?
- biehl 14y agoYes. E-bikes are legal and regulated.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- arnarbi 14y agoIf you click through to the Danish news article, it is rather critical. The title says "Is the new super cycle-path really super?" and there is a video of riding through it. Turns out it is just normal cycle paths that have been there for years it seems. They just made a route and painted an orange line to mark it. That said, Danish cycle paths are first class to begin with.
- excuse-me 14y agoCould still be worth it if lots of people who didn't cycle suddenly see this and give it a try. It's still better value than most government adverts telling you to do something!
- arnarbi 14y agoHmm, cycling in Copenhagen is the default mode of transportation. You can't live there for more than three days and not be aware that there are cycle paths everywhere.
- excuse-me 14y agoYou wouldn't think there were many people that didn't know smoking is bad for you - but it doesn't stop the govt spending millions telling you! It's still worth advertising that there is a fast/safe/easy cycle route between A-B. The city here (N. America) does a good (well cheap) job of marking certain streets as preferred cycle routes. These are normally one block off the main traffic street and mean that all the cyclists are concentrated together into a sufficent mass that they dominate the road and drivers know to be more carefull.
- iconfinder 14y agoAs a Dane and living in Copenhagen, this is what I miss everytime I'm in another city (except Amsterdam perhaps). I love how there are bike lanes all over the place. We also have traffic lights for bikes that let's you get ahead of the cars.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoI've always wondered if we couldn't do an elevated bike trail in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of the challenges of doing an elevated freeway or road are the costs associated with supporting vehicles, but a huge number of bikes/pedestrians would not be quite as burdensome. On/off ramps would be a challenge as that is where they would most likely interfere with existing traffic patterns. The Stevens Creek trail (an old rail bed in parts) is a good example of an urban trail. And of course highway 85 before they officially opened it, it was like four lane bike trail and exceptionally awesome.
- ammmir 14y agodo you have any photos of what the 85 bike trail used to look like? i only found some constructions shots at http://www.interstate80.info/85_uc_california_2.html http://www.interstate80.info/85_uc_california_2.html but i'm sure it must've been beautiful.